Why I Stopped Using Bitly (And What I Switched To)

A few months ago I hit the wall with Bitly. My free plan ran out of analytics. My branded links looked cheap. And paying $35/month for what should be basic features felt wrong. So I went looking for something better. Here is what I found. The Bitly Problem Bitly is great until you need: Analytics beyond 30 days (locked behind Pro) Custom domains without paying $35/month API access that does not throttle you at 100 requests/month Link-in-bio pages (not available at all) For a SaaS builder managing multiple products, these are not nice-to-haves. They are essentials. What I Switched To I moved everything to Dub.co and honestly the difference is night and day. Here is what the free tier includes: Feature Bitly Free Dub.co Free Links 10/month 25/month Analytics 30 days Forever Custom domains No Yes API calls 100/month 1000/month QR codes Basic Advanced Link-in-bio No Yes My Setup I use Dub.co for: Newsletter tracking — every link in my emails goes through Dub so I know what readers actually